Riverside Park contamination must be cleaned up before reopening

Apr. 17, 2013

Detroiter Andre Johnson, 49, does a little fishing on his day off at Riverside Park. In the background is the Ambassador Bridge, which joins Detroit and Windsor. Coming back from a mail delivery is the J.W. Westcott. / Richard Lee/Detroit Free Press

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Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Joe Rashid, 31, of Detroit is a vocal supporter of Riverside Park, which has been closed since last year. The park sits in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge. Regina H. Boone/Detroit Free Press / Regina H. Boone/Detroit Free Press

Kofi Myler

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It’s likely to be years before a park in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge reopens after old industrial contamination was discovered there last year, according to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

City officials say all contamination must be cleaned up before Riverside Park, at West Grand Boulevard and 24th Street along the Detroit River, can reopen.

“I’d really like to see it open,” said Joe Rashid, 31, who has organized baseball and softball leagues and helped refurbish the ball fields there. “There’s a lot of folks who want to get back out there.”

The continued closure of the park, which was announced as a temporary measure in March 2012, means groups that would otherwise play spring sports there will have to go elsewhere despite an opinion by DTE Energy’s independent toxicologist that the park’s ball fields and boat launch are safe to use.

DTE is responsible for any cleanup on two of the three parcels at the park because MichCon, which merged with DTE in 2001, owned the area before it became a city park in 1979. Cleanup responsibility for the third parcel, which includes a parking lot and fishing area is unclear.

“Certainly, DTE wants to take care of the work as quickly as possible, but certain steps need to be taken in a certain order in order to be done right,” said DTE spokeswoman Randi Berris, who pointed out that the utility has told the city of its belief that some areas are safe to use.

In a statement, Recreation Department Director Alicia Minter said the city informed residents last year of the potential hazards at the 20-acre park.

“The park is closed until the contamination there is cleaned up 100%, in the best interests of the health and safety of the public,” the statement said.

Gerald Tiernan, environmental manager for the MDEQ’s remediation and redevelopment division, said his agency supports the city’s position, although he’s hopeful that DTE could make enough progress that part of the park could reopen before the entire cleanup is completed. The utility is in the process of crafting a work plan for the investigation of the site.

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“We need more information before we can draw any conclusion about where things are right now,” Tiernan said.

The contamination was found last year about 8 feet underground by the Detroit International Bridge Co., which owns the Ambassador Bridge, Berris said.

The fact that the bridge company was involved in the discovery has troubled community activists because the company, which would like to build a second bridge span, tried for years to restrict access to the public park, even fencing it off. The company lost a Wayne County Circuit Court case in the matter in February 2012.

Messages seeking comment were left for company President Dan Stamper.

State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, said residents obviously want the park to be safe for use but that “nobody’s going to eat the dirt.”

“This is one of the few parks we have access for our youth baseball league,” she said. “My greatest concern is that the children are going to suffer from not having access to the park.”

She questioned why the city was not equally concerned about the appearance in recent months of massive petroleum coke piles along the Detroit River.

Community and environmental activists, especially across the river in Canada, have raised concerns about dust and runoff from the piles, some of which are located on property owned by the family of bridge company owner Manuel (Matty) Moroun. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said petroleum coke, a by-product of tar sands oil refining, is not carcinogenic.

The Riverside Park contamination — a tar-like material consisting of hydrocarbons and traces of chrome, nickel and lead — stems from the location’s use for the production of coal- and oil-derived manufactured gas that dates to 1867, according to Berris. The gas was used for heating, cooking and lighting prior to the widespread availability of natural gas. MichCon acquired the property in the early 1900s and continued to produce gas on the site until 1954.

MichCon performed remediation on the site in 1986, removing the top 12 inches of soil and installing a PVC liner as a cap before refilling the soil, planting grass and installing groundwater monitoring, said Berris, who pointed out that the city approved the plan.

Berris said DTE has had success with cleanup operations at other former manufactured gas sites, including one at the Uniroyal site near Belle Isle and a recently completed effort along the Huron River in Ann Arbor. DTE hopes to complete its portion of the Uniroyal cleanup possibly later this year.

One impact of the closure at Riverside Park has been on trash pickup, which has stopped even though people continue to fish there despite signs warning of contamination.

Sam Buchanan played at the park as a child. Now, he works at an adjacent business — J.W. Westcott Co., which delivers mail to passing ships.

In the 29 shipping seasons he has worked with the company — Buchanan, 45, is captain of the company’s mail boat — the general disrepair and the trash that has been allowed to accumulate in and around the park is the worst he’s seen.